to place (in a very wide application) · verb, qal imperative, 2nd person masculine singular + paragogic he
fear
מוֹרָ֗הmo.Rah
H4172
fear · noun, common feminine singular absolute
LORD
יְהוָ֨הYah.weh
H3068
Jehovah · proper noun, a title
nations
גוֹיִ֑םgo.Yim
H1471
a foreign nation · noun, common masculine plural absolute
know
יֵדְע֥וּye.de.'U
H3045
to know (properly · verb, qal imperfect, 3rd person masculine plural
men
אֱנ֖וֹשׁ'e.No.osh
H582
a man in general (singly or collectively) · noun, common masculine singular absolute
Selah
סֶּֽלָהSe.lah
H5542
suspension (of music) · interjection
Strong's Exhaustive Concordance (James Strong, 1890/1894), public domain; digitized by Open Scriptures (CC BY-SA). KJV word tagging: eBible.org (public domain). Original-language text, parsing and brief lexicon: STEPBible.org data from Tyndale House, Cambridge (CC BY 4.0).
Cross-references
Isaiah 31:3 Now the Egyptians are men, and not God; and their horses flesh, and not spirit. When the LORD shall stretch out his hand, both he that helpe…
Psalms 62:9 Surely men of low degree are vanity, and men of high degree are a lie: to be laid in the balance, they are altogether lighter than vanity.
Psalms 82:6-7 I have said, Ye are gods; and all of you are children of the most High.
Jeremiah 32:40 And I will make an everlasting covenant with them, that I will not turn away from them, to do them good; but I will put my fear in their hea…
Deuteronomy 2:25 This day will I begin to put the dread of thee and the fear of thee upon the nations that are under the whole heaven, who shall hear report…
Psalms 76:12 He shall cut off the spirit of princes: he is terrible to the kings of the earth.
Acts 12:22-23 And the people gave a shout, saying, It is the voice of a god, and not of a man.
Exodus 23:27 I will send my fear before thee, and will destroy all the people to whom thou shalt come, and I will make all thine enemies turn their backs…
Cross-references from OpenBible.info (CC BY), in the lineage of the Treasury of Scripture Knowledge (public domain).
Commentary
Matthew Henry on Psalms 9:11–end
In these verses,
I. David, having praised God himself, calls upon and invites others to praise him likewise, Psa 9:11. Those who believe God is greatly to be praised not only desire to do that work better themselves, but desire that others also may join with them in it and would gladly be instrumental to bring them to it: Sing praises to the Lord who dwelleth in Zion. As the special residence of his glory is in heaven, so the special residence of his grace is in his church, of which Zion was a type. There he meets his people with his promises and graces, and there he expects they should meet him with their praises and services. In all our praises we should have an eye to God as dwelling in Z…
By their effectual subjection, make them to realize their frail nature (Psa 8:4), and deter them from all conceit and future rebellion.
Next: Psalms Chapter 10
John Gill on Psalms 9:20
Put them in fear, O Lord,.... Who are, a bold, impudent, fearless generation of men; who, like the unjust judge, neither fear God nor regard men, therefore the psalmist prays that God would inject fear into them, who only can do it; and this will be done at Babylon's destruction, when the antichristian kings, merchants, and seafaring men, will stand afar off for fear of her torment, Revelation 18:10;
that the nations may know themselves to be but men; and not God, and have no power against him; see Isaiah 31:3; the sense is, that the antichristian nations, who oppose themselves to Christ and his people, may know that they are but frail, mortal, miserable men, as the word (q) signifies; and…
Psalm 9:19-20
19. Arise, O Jehovah; let not man [181] prevail: let the nations be judged in thy sight. 20. Put them in fear, O Jehovah; that the nations may know that they are men.
19. Arise, O Jehovah. When David beseeches God to arise, the expression does not strictly apply to God, but it refers to external appearance and to our senses; for we do not perceive God to be the deliverer of his people except when he appears before our eyes, as it were sitting upon the judgment-seat. There is added a consideration or reason to induce God to avenge the injuries done to his people, namely, that man may not prevail; for when God arises, all the fierceness [182] of the ungodly must immediately fal…
The Church Fathers
He urges God by his tolerance and the strength of his mercy and patience that he grant a time of trials of long duration to the people harassing him. Before he had prayed that the nations be judged in the sight of God; now he asks that a lawgiver be appointed for the nations before the future judgment, so that they might learn they are people and not brute animals, for the law was hardly given to brutish animals. This law is not from Moses, who once had carried it from the midst of people; it is not about the law given to the Jews alone, nor does he wish that another law be awaited, as the law of the New Testament stretches over the whole earth. Indeed, Christ is the Lawgiver, and the Gospel message applies to the nations.
"Arise, O Lord, let not man prevail" (ver. 19). The future judgment is prayed for: but before it come, "Let the heathen," saith he, "be judged in Thy sight:" that is, in secret; which is called in God's sight, with the knowledge of a few holy and righteous ones. "Place a lawgiver over them, O Lord" (ver. 20). He seems to me to point out Antichrist: of whom the Apostle says, "When the man of sin shall be revealed." "Let the heathen know that they are men." That they who will be set free by the Son of God, and belong to the Son of Man, and be sons of men, that is, new men, may serve man, that is, the old man the sinner, "for that they are men." And because it is believed that he is to arrive at so great a pitch of empty glory, and he will be permitted to do so great things, both against all men and against the Saints of God, that then some weak ones shall indeed think that God cares not for human affairs, the Psalmist interposing a diapsalma, adds as it were the voice of men groaning and asking why judgment is deferred.
The Church Fathers: public-domain translations (Ante-Nicene and Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers), verse-indexed by SermonIndex (CC BY 4.0).
Dictionary and topics
Man — (1.) Heb. ‘Adam, used as the proper name of the first man. The name is derived from a word meaning “to be red,” and thus the first man was called Adam because he was formed from the red earth. It is…
Muth-labben — Occurring only in the title of Psalm 9. Some interpret the words as meaning “on the death of Labben,” some unknown person. Others render the word, “on the death of the son;” i.e., of Absalom (2 Sam.…
Psalms, Book Of — The present Hebrew name of the book is Tehill’im, “Praises;” but in the actual superscriptions of the psalms the word Tehillah is applied only to one, (Psalms 145:1) ... which is indeed emphatically…
Gentiles · Called: Nations — Called: Nations
Pride · General scriptures concerning — General scriptures concerning
Zeal, Religious · EXEMPLIFIE — EXEMPLIFIE
Dictionary: Easton's (1897) and Smith's (1863), public domain. Topics: Nave's Topical Bible (1896) and Torrey's Topical Textbook (1897), public domain. Both as parsed by NEUU (CC BY 4.0).
(Heb.: 9:20-21) By reason of the act of judgment already witnessed the prayer now becomes all the more confident in respect of the state of things which is still continually threatened. From י the poet takes a leap to ק which, however, seems to be a substitute for the כ which one would expect to find, since the following Psalm begins with ל. David's קוּמה (Psa 3:8; Psa 7:7) is taken from the lips of Moses, Num 10:35. "Jahve arises, comes, appears" are kindred expressions in the Old Testament, all of which point to a final personal appearing of God to take part in human history from which He has now, as it were, retired into a state of repose becoming invisible to human eyes. Hupfeld and othe…
The psalmist ends his lament with a prayer for the Lord’s intervention and divine vengeance. • mere mortals . . . merely human: Humans who have received authority and glory sometimes become oppressive and assume glory for themselves (see 8:4; 10:18).
Spurgeon's Treasury of David on Psalms 9:20
Put them in fear, O Lord: that the nations may know themselves to be but men. Selah.
One would think that men would not grow so vain as to deny themselves to be but men, but it appears to be a lesson which only a divine schoolmaster can teach to some proud spirits. Crowns leave their wearers but men, degrees of eminent learning make their owners not more than men, valour and conquest cannot elevate beyond the dead level of "but men;" and all the wealth of Croesus, the wisdom of Solon, the power of Alexander, the eloquence of Demosthenes, if added together, would leave the possessor but a man. May we ever remember this lest like those in the text, we should be put in fear. Before leaving thi…
